THE PUBLIC MIND: READER IS CRITICAL OF KINDER'S COLUMN

Dear Editor:

Who lost the war?

If think that if your newspaper is going to re-fight the war in Vietnam, you should get the question right. The right question is not whether we dropped more bombs on both civilian and military targets on the North than we did on Germany. Nor is it whether we would have been sudden victors had we bombed the last 20 miles up to the border of China. The right question is not even why Peter Kinder thinks he knows more about anything than does Tom Eagleton.

The right question is who lost the war in Vietnam. And the answer also answers the question of why poor Peter wants to re-hash it today. We didn't lose the war in Vietnam because the newspapers told the truth about it. We didn't lose it because 58,000 American dead wasn't a big enough commitment. We didn't lose it because the Country got sick of it after only 15 years.

We lost the war because a bunch of buffoons got us into a war that could not be won with 525,000 ground troops, 15 years trying and 58,000 dead. The people who lost the war are the ones who led us into it. In short: Peter Kinder lost the war. No wonder he wants to re-write the history and find scapegoats. He hasn't the courage to admit that he and the people like him couldn't tell the difference between a desert and a jungle.

The Peter Kinders of the 1960s didn't know that air power works a good deal better in a desert where there is no place to hide. Or that a just conflict with the world on your side goes a good deal better than an effort to prop up a hated and corrupt regime which was roundly despised by its own people.

If columnist Kinder had an ounce of honor he would quit trying to blame other people for the lack of good sense he and his ilk had when they started up the wrong war in the wrong place. Instead he would have long since done the honorable thing. The only honorable avenue available to those who foolishly lead their fellows into disaster. He would have, and still should, take himself out back of the newspaper office and fall on his pen.

Besides satisfying, however belatedly, his honor, it would have a host of additional benefits.

Sincerely yours,

John L. Cook

Cape Girardeau